


Curry of All Kinds

by bumblebeug (Madsmadsmads)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Confused Alya Césaire, Eating Disorders, Fox Miraculous, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Inadvertent mother trauma, Miraculous Ladybug - Freeform, Miraculous Ladybug References, Other, POV Alya Césaire, alya disordered eating, angst Alya Césaire, please be careful reading, pre miraculous, young Alya Césaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:55:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madsmadsmads/pseuds/bumblebeug
Summary: In which a young Alya questions the proper proportions of curry. Angst. Please avoid if eating disorders are triggering.
Relationships: Alya Césaire/Alya Césaire
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Curry of All Kinds

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, sorry. Overthinking Alya's Rena Rouge designs origin. You know the ones, where she is thinner and paler than she should be. Sorry, I guess this is a 'Dead Dove: Do Not Eat' type of fiction.   
> WARNING: Please don't read if hinted eating disorders are triggering.

Once, years ago, Alya bought a scale on a whim. Not the type of scale her mother would use to measure out her various ingredients while in the kitchen but a proper, real scale built for human-use.

When she got home, she hurriedly scurried into her room to hide her treasure. She wasn’t ashamed – at that age she didn’t know that people could be ashamed of such a purchase. Instead her fervor was because she was young and the idea of having a secret thing – a thing no one knew about – was an exhilarating thought.

Alya discarded the box and placed the scale on the floor, adjusting the number using the turn wheel until the scale pointer read ‘0’. This was another difference from her mother’s kitchen scales. Those scales were electronic and required a lot of fuss – they weren’t just battery powered, they also required a man to come by every six months to, as her mother would say, sighing, “ensure that the calibration hadn’t gone a bit funny since the last he was here.”

‘After all,’ she would continue every time, ‘it would be a disaster if the ingredients got out of harmony.’

It was Alya’s understanding that, if _that_ happened – well, then the food wouldn’t come out right _at all_. And that consequence carried its own set of consequences because if a dish didn’t come out just so, then the rest of the meal was thrown off course because, after all, there was very little that could be done to correct a meal that had already finished cooking. So, Alya cleverly bought an analog scale – therefore requiring no balance-man to come check the scales if they went a bit funny, because Alya herself could correct it by turning the dial on the side until the scale read ‘0’ once again.

Once the scale set squarely on zero, Alya excitedly stood on the scale and stared down. The scale made a satisfactory clicking noise before settling on a number.

‘Oh,’ Alya thought, ‘So that’s the measure of me.’

The number that stared back up at her was neither good nor bad. It was merely _her._ Her measurement. And, in some way, who she quantifiably _was._

It was a good number, she thought, ending the way it did in a perfect even number.

She cocked her head to the side sharpely, allowing a puff of hair to briefly kiss her cheek, If she were a spice, she would probably make a dish turn out perfectly.

Or, she was at least 99% sure. Hard to tell. She couldn’t quite fathom what her number would yield if say, she were a _Colombo_ spice blend, but she felt it would be close to perfect if it were her mother cooking. 

She was so lost in admiring her number. Of how her number would complete a variety of dishes that she didn’t notice time pass until she was physically lifted off the scale.

A cry of indignation worked its way to the back of her throat. It died there, in the back of her throat, as Alya looked into the wide, frightened eyes of her mother.

The cry that died in her throat clogged further words. Nothing would come out correctly.

She couldn’t seem to explain properly that she found her number perfectly satisfactory.

It was _her._

Who she _was._

And that, if she were a spice instead of a girl, she would be a perfect curry. 

But nothing would go past the dead indignation on her tongue; so she watched in horror as her mother cried, unable to explain that her measurement, _her_ in the barest sense, was alright with her. Instead, she stone-faced as her mother threw away her scale while exclaiming that her number wasn’t important. That it didn’t matter. That she never needed to know it. 

_But_ , she reasoned to herself all the while, _if it were truly ok – than her mother wouldn’t have reacted so strongly._

 _Was she,_ she hesitated to think, _perhaps the wrong number?_

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a fic that literally no one has asked for. Quarantine means my mind has time to go to shadowy corners. :/


End file.
